Paragastric Autonomic Neural Blockade as Part of Combined Anesthesia. Impact on Anesthetic Agents Consumption: A Randomized Clinical Trial Protocol

Balanced general anesthesia, even if combined with local anesthesia or parietal blocks such as transversus abdominis plane (TAP), subcostal, or pararectal blocks, is insufficient to block the autonomic impulses released during most intra-abdominal visceral surgeries, especially in laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy (LSG). These impulses are, in part, responsible for the hemodynamic changes observed during different phases of LSG and the subsequent visceral pain and associated symptoms, such as nausea and vomiting, observed in a substantial number of patients in the immediate postoperative period after LSG and other minimally invasive procedures. Visceral pain substantially impacts patients' quality of life, recovery time, nursing time allocation, and resultant risk of opioid abuse. Nausea, food intolerance, and pain are responsible for most readmissions after LSG and other bariatric procedures. Many of these patients have associated severe respiratory impairments and other comorbidities. They often need increased amounts of halogenated anesthetics, opioid analgesics, antiemetics, and other anesthetic modalities such as epidural anesthesia. A recent randomized clinical trial (RCT) demonstrated that a novel approach, namely paragastric autonomic neural blockade (PG-ANB), is safe and effective in addressing visceral pain while reducing the need for analgesics, including opioids and the decreasing nausea and vomiting in the first 24 hours after a laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy. In an observational series, we found that by performing PG-ANB as the first step in LSG, the need for morphine-equivalent doses and halogenated anesthetics diminished, and hemodynamic stability increased while maintaining the previously reported reduction of postoperative visceral pain and associated symptoms. Similarly, when implementing a variation of the autonomic blockade targeting proper pathways as an early step in cholecystectomy, the same beneficial effects were observed in affected patients.